Just before Easter the Trump Administration announced multiple new sanctions on Cuba. In doing so, senior US officials made clear that Washington was not just trying to break Havana’s close economic and political ties with Venezuela but intended the measures to bring about fundamental political change.

It is a position that stands in stark contrast to that
of the EU, Canada, Mexico and most other nations worldwide that believe the
only way to encourage change in Cuba is through dialogue, calibrated support
and the exploration of the potential that generational change offers.

Speaking on 17 April to Bay of Pigs veterans in Miami,
the US National Security Adviser, John Bolton, could not have been clearer
about US intentions. US policy in the Americas, he observed in a speech high on
aggressive rhetoric against Cuba, now ends with the removal of communism and
socialism from the hemisphere. “We proudly proclaim for all to hear: the Monroe
Doctrine is alive and well” he declared in remarks that anticipated “the coming
of the first free hemisphere in human history”.

The same day in significantly more measured terms,
Mike Pompeo, the US Secretary of State, suggested that the sanctions were
intended to advance “human rights and democracy on behalf of the Cuban people”.

The new measures allow as of 2 May US lawsuits against
anyone including US companies ‘trafficking’ (making use of) expropriated US
property in Cuba, by ceasing to waive Title III of its 1996 Helms Burton
legislation. More potently, the State Department will now actively use Title IV
of the bill to deny US visas to any foreign national who ‘traffics’ in
confiscated property or who are corporate officers or shareholders of involved
entities.

The Trump Administration also said that it will halt
‘u-turn’ financial transactions to Cuban entities made through US banks and
will cap previously unlimited personal transfers to US$1,000 per quarter, a
measure expected to drastically reduce the US$4bn a year ordinary Cubans
receive in remittances largely from the US. In addition, Washington will impose
new restrictions on non-family travel to Cuba in ways that are, as yet, unclear
but likely to impair significantly all US travel to the island. It will also
add additional Cuban enterprises and individuals to the State Department’s
restricted list.

Other measures are also planned. Speaking after Mr
Pompeo, the US Assistant Secretary for the Western Hemisphere, Kim Brier, said
that the US is exploring further options and that the measures announced were
just the beginning of a new process.

Although the detail has yet to be spelt out, an “on
background” interview with two senior-level Trump Administration officials
conducted by the US-Cuba Trade and Economic Council Inc provides several clues.

The business group, which works with US and other
investors in Cuba, quoted its interlocutors as saying that while they did not
expect sanctions to result in immediate political change in Cuba, one intended
outcome would be to alter the structure of the Cuban economy by removing the
subsidised oil exports the country receives from Venezuela. “That means
permitting more of a market-based economy. They won’t like it, but their
ability to derail (sanctions) is pretty fast moving beyond their control”, the
official was reported as saying.

The same individuals also said that that a unique
confluence of events now offers the US the opportunity to bring about change in
Cuba. “For President Trump, the stars have aligned, and Venezuela is the tool
that we believe can provide change within two countries” one of the officials
was quoted on the organisation’s website as saying.

How effective such an approach might be is unclear.
Cuba has a fifty year plus history of resistance and no inclination to back
down in the face of US pressure. Moreover, there are already signs of a
significant deepening in Havana’s economic and political relationship with
Russia, which both sides now publicly refer to as being refer once again as
being strategic.

Washington’s latest announcements however come at a
difficult moment for the Cuban Government. It is continuing to struggle to
reform its over-centralised, bureaucratic and inefficient planned economy in
the hope that decentralisation and individual responsibility might deliver a more
modern, productive, socially oriented economy.

Speaking recently to Cuba’s National Assembly as First
Secretary of the country’s Communist Party, Raúl Castro stated that its
government was preparing for what may be an extended period of hardship. He
said that faced with the “increasingly threatening tone” of the US, equal
importance was being placed on “preparing for the country’s defence, and the
national economy’s development”.

He warned legislators that while the country was not
in danger of returning to the hardships that followed the collapse of the
Soviet Union, Cuba could face additional economic challenges that could worsen
in coming months. He also said that measures were underway to reinforce the
combat capacity of the country’s armed forces in accordance with its strategic
doctrine of a ‘war of all the people’.

What comes next is a period of uncertainty in relation
to investment, trade and travel, and a growing international divide between
Washington and its allies over Cuba.

In a joint letter to Mr Pompeo the EU High
Representative, Federica Mogherini, and the EU Trade Commissioner, Cecelia
Malmstrom, made clear that the US decision on Helms-Burton broke commitments
made by Washington in 1997 and 1998, and should not be conflated with shared
concerns about human rights and democracy in Cuba, or the need to urgently to
find a solution to the crisis in Venezuela.

Subsequently the EU and Canada issued a joint
statement expressing concern about the impact of US policy on legitimate EU and
Canadian business activity in Cuba. They also indicated they would work
together to offset any extraterritorial effect by introducing countervailing
sanctions against US entities and introduce actions at the World Trade
Organisation.

Recent statements make it hard to escape the conclusion that President Trump and his most senior advisers have embarked on a strategy intended to engineer change in Cuba though economic hardship and the creation of discontent. If this is so, it is policy which has unpredictable political, social, economic and migratory consequences for the wider region, placing ideology above realpolitik and what is humane.

David Jessop is a consultant to the Caribbean Council and can be contacted at david.jessop@caribbean-council.org

Previous columns can be found at www.caribbean-council.org

28 April 2019

The views and opinions expressed in the View from Europe are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of The Caribbean Council.

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